Frost rolls through the Corn Belt

As expected we did see the growing season come to an end over the weekend across the northern Plains and in a significant part of the Midwest. Cold dominated the northern Plains for both Saturday and Sunday mornings, with lows down to 22 degrees recorded on both mornings.

Sunday morning was the coldest in the Midwest, though there were still a number of places that got below 32 degrees on Monday morning as well. Places as far south as St. Joseph and Kirksville (in Missouri) and Lincoln (in Illinois) had temperatures at or below the 32 degree mark. The cold temperature that I could find was a 24 degree reading at Spencer.

With grain markets down hard overnight, clearly it is believed that this freeze had no impact on final production numbers for corn and soybeans, despite the fact that such temperatures occurred close to a week earlier than normal for a number of areas (and were cold enough for a few record lows to be scored). Many believe that it will actually be helpful for harvesting, as it will kill weeds and force corn and soybean crops to mature and drydown faster. Notable for the weather ahead is rain in the forecast for this work-week and into the weekend for the southern Plains and the southern Corn Belt.

The southern Corn Belt is the wettest part of the Midwest right now (and we saw parts of east-central Illinois, central Indiana, and central Ohio see well over an inch of rain back on Friday), but persistent rain that will start there tonight and last through the end of the work-week will bring them additional 0.50-1.50". A place that is not wet right now but will see similar totals is the hard-red winter wheat belt, where most of Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas will see those rains for especially Thursday and Friday of this week. Rains may continue in the southern Plains and the southern Corn Belt into the weekend and spread into the Delta and Southeast.

Meanwhile, areas north of Interstate 80 in the Corn Belt and all of the northern Plains are looking at next to nothing in the way of rainfall for the next ten days.